France’s No. 2 luxury goods company has just unveiled a very detailed progress report on its sustainable development strategy, announced in 2017. It lists and measures with precision the various achievements already made by the group.
Six years ago, Kering launched its sustainable development strategy, named “Shaping the Luxury of Tomorrow, by 2025,” incorporating all the Group’s Houses.
Since then, the luxury group has taken care to measure its progress with its famous EP&L (Environmental Profit & Loss), an environmental profit and loss account that it offers as an open source to the industry.
Today, the company is delivering a progress report that shows its sustainable development progress over the period 2020-2023.
73 Environmental Performance Indicators
The measurement of the group’s progress is particularly precise: based on 73 Environmental Performance Indicators (eKPI), it concerns both its own activities and the entire supply chain. Kering looks at all the upstream stages, from the extraction of raw materials to production; the manufacture and transformation of products; transport; and finally its boutiques, offices and warehouses. With such details, we are far from greenwashing…
The report details the main progress made in the three areas -ARE, COLLABORATE and CREATE – around which the company’s strategy is structured. Here are the most significant achievements highlighted by the group.
CARE for the planet
Having already reduced its global environmental impacts by 14%, the luxury group now claims to be on track to achieve its goal of a 40% reduction by 2025.
With already 36% reduction in its greenhouse gas emissions, between 2015 and 2018, Kering is on track to achieve its goal of lowering them by 50%. The group has already reduced greenhouse gas emissions related to its stores and other locations around the world by 77% in intensity between 2015 and 2018.
The group has achieved 67% renewable energy use for the entire Group, 78% in Europe and even 100% in seven countries!
As of 2018, Kering has become fully carbon neutral across its operations and supply chain. To achieve this, it has deployed measures to effectively reduce or even avoid emissions. And it has offset the remaining emissions through its carbon offset program. This includes certified REDD+ projects aimed at preserving critical forests and biodiversity, as well as perpetuating the livelihoods of local people.
In early 2018, the Group defined and shared demanding “Kering Standards for raw materials and manufacturing processes” in terms of environmental protection, social compliance, traceability, chemical use and animal welfare. These are already 68% implemented by its suppliers.
While it already sources 100% of its gold responsibly for watches and jewelry, Kering says it is “on track to achieve 100% sustainable sourcing for other key raw materials by 2025.” And with already an 88% traceability level for its key raw materials, it is well on its way to its goal of 100% by 2025
In May 2019, Kering created the first animal welfare standards in the luxury and fashion world.
COLLABORATE with people (“engage employees”)
Kering loves women…With 55% of its managers, 63% of its total workforce, 33% of the members of its Executive Committee and 60% of its Board of Directors in 2019, Kering is now “one of the most feminized companies in the CAC 40”. The group also boasts a pioneering parenting policy (high standards of maternity, paternity and adoption leave, etc.). Finally, it has supported microcredit, vocational training and education programs to promote the autonomy of women in the regions of its supply chains.
The Group, which has defined and implemented a charter for the well-being of models, is committed to working only with models over the age of 18.
Finally, in terms of training, in addition to the creation in Paris of the first “IFM – Kering Sustainability Chair” with the Institut Français de la Mode (IFM), it is anticipating the next generation of artisans, via more than 20 training programs in 2019.
CREATE new business models and innovations
Kering is working to identify start-ups around the world. In Greater China, in collaboration with the Plug and Play innovation platform, the group has launched the “K Generation Award” to identify innovative start-ups and promising new technologies.
In terms of sustainable materials, a host of initiatives have been taken: the launch of the Sustainable Innovation Lab (SIL) dedicated to Jewelry and Watches; Material Innovation Lab (MIL), a library already stocked with 3,800 sustainable fabrics, a metal-free leather tanning process used in 24% of its collections by the end of 2019; new ways of reusing its materials and integrating recycled and regenerated raw materials; the launch of innovative financing mechanisms – such as the Kering Ethical Gold platform – aimed at encouraging the use of sustainable raw materials…
Pilot projects (traceability technologies, alternative materials and low-impact manufacturing processes, such as a mushroom-based material and natural dyes) have been deployed.
Kering has formed a partnership on regenerative agriculture, a first in the fashion industry.
The group is not playing it “personal“: it has launched its “Digital EP&L” for “an unprecedented level of transparency“, has opened access to unprecedented data to “help luxury and fashion players better understand the challenges of their own environmental impact“. It has launched a major international survey to understand the behavior of luxury customers regarding product usage and end-of-life, in order to extend the EP&L methodology to a full, circular life cycle of all products.
Last but not Least, Kering was the initiator, in 2019, of the famous Fashion Pact. Objective: to mobilize fashion and textile players around key environmental issues. It has since been signed by 63 companies, weighing more than 250 brands and over 30% of the sector.
“The sustainable development progress report we are sharing today reflects very encouraging achievements in line with Kering’s roadmap to 2025. While there is still some way to go to achieve our ambitions and go beyond, we are determined and confident in our ability to accelerate our efforts and implement the often innovative solutions now precisely identified,” concluded Marie-Claire Daveu, Kering’s Director of Sustainable Development and International Corporate Affairs.
The new environmental commitment announced last Friday – to reduce its absolute greenhouse gas emissions in areas 1, 2 and 3 by 40% by 2035 – represents the next ambitious step for the luxury group.
Read also > Kering provides a progress report on its sustainable actions
Featured photo : © Kering
